The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [130]
Madeleine and I went through our motions again on screen, but, to me, the more I saw the clip, the less convincing it became. Madeleine won hands-down on the photogenic front. Even at her most furious, she remained elegant and pretty, and it was hard to believe that her Jasper Conran designer shoes were doing any damage at all. I just looked ridiculous. Why hadn’t I fought back instead of allowing myself to be kicked?
I don’t know if Jess was aware of my dejection, but when the clip ended she spoke before anyone else could. “The images are graphic and don’t flatter your wife, Nathaniel. She’s enjoying it too much. If I decide to run the fight in slow-motion, which I will for the DVDs, it’ll be even more obvious. No one’ll believe she didn’t do the same thing to Lily. You said she’s done it to the kid.”
“That’s a lie,” Madeleine shouted.
Jess glanced at her briefly then leaned towards the telephone speaker. “Was it, Nathaniel? You told me you can never leave her alone with Hugo…which is why he never comes to Dorset with her. Is that true or not?”
We all heard him take an audible breath through his nose. “True.”
“Liar!” Madeleine stormed. “Don’t you try and blame—”
Nathaniel cut in again. “I had nothing to do with any of this, Jess. You’ve got to believe that. My only involvement was to pass on what you told me about the power of attorney and phone Madeleine when I picked up your message about social services.”
“Connie thinks you came down the night I found Lily.”
“No. The last time I came down was when I spoke to you in November. Hugo and I didn’t see Madeleine at all for most of December and January. We thought she was looking after Lily—it’s what she said she was doing—playing the dutiful daughter in the hopes of reversing the power of attorney. If I’d guessed—” he broke off abruptly. “Lily was supposed to die of hypothermia that night, Jess. Madeleine was furious when you turned up and took her away.”
There was a short silence.
Jess stirred herself. “She was here? She was watching?”
“All the time.”
“Staying in the house?”
“Yes. She couldn’t abandon Lily completely. Anyone could have arrived out of the blue, and there’d have been hell to pay if they’d found Lily drinking from the fishpond. Madeleine switched the water on and off as it suited her…sometimes Lily had water…sometimes she didn’t…the same with the lights.”
“He’s lying,” Madeleine said. “It’s all lies.”
“She made Lily take cold baths, then locked her in her room in the dark. The only thing she couldn’t turn on and off at will was the Aga, so she booked herself into a hotel some nights to have a bath and a decent meal. That’s when Lily got out and went looking for help in the village.”
There was a horrible logic to it. “Why did no one see Madeleine?” I asked.
“Because she was only going to show herself if someone came to the door. Her story would have been that she’d just arrived and discovered Lily in extremis. It never happened.” He gave a hollow laugh. “She said it wouldn’t. She said if her mother died, the body would lie in the house for weeks until Jess went in.”
I glanced at Jess’s bent head. “Why didn’t she show herself when Jess found Lily outside?”
“Too scared. She’d parked her car in the garage at the back so that no one would see it…and she never did that normally. In any case, the house was in darkness, and she had no explanation for why she hadn’t turned on the lights to look for her mother as soon as she arrived.” He paused. “You let her off the hook by taking Lily to the farm, Jess. If you’d stayed and called an ambulance, Madeleine would have been trapped in the house.”
When Jess didn’t say anything, Nathaniel spoke again. “I can’t see her being prosecuted for it. It’s maybe what you want but”—he faltered briefly as if deciding how honest